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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24761524">Someone, I tell you, in another time will remember us</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/airotsa/pseuds/airotsa'>airotsa</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F, Flash fic week, Tumblr Prompts</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 11:23:14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,638</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24761524</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/airotsa/pseuds/airotsa</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Tumblr prompts I get! If you wish to make one my url is @myannaburing. Now featuring flash-fics, too.</p><p>"Grief could stop hurting, haunting, but hope was an incurable wound, always bleeding, asking for more.</p><p><i>The hope that one day she may come back to me.</i>"</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Tissaia de Vries/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>100</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Prompt by anonymous: "Sometimes the best thing we can do for a flower is water it."</p><p>Rated T.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Their ascension was nearing and finally all that she had worked for would come to fruition. Yennefer would seize power over a great kingdom and its King, twist the strings of politics with deft fingers and coy smiles. She’d sleep in silken sheets where some miles north of the castle her sisters were most likely still stuck in the pig farm.</p><p>The sorceress just had to get past her personal sessions with the Rectoress.</p><p>The Chapter’s hold over the Continent was ghost-like, omnipresent. Everything that meant something they knew, whispered words and cautious actions which they investigated and manipulated to their benefit. And the few sorceresses that were deemed worthy were the birds that chirped the tunes of treason and greatness back to them.</p><p>To understand how the game was played was the last lesson she’d learn from the Arch-mistress, all of the women that would go to court would. But the web they knit had to be custom made for every kingdom they counselled, so for the first time in their decade’s long career, they were given personal lesson with the one woman that could bend heaven with the blink of an eye.</p><p>Her teachings couldn’t be interrupted or mixed even in the slightest, so when she started with Sabrina eight months prior and didn’t stop until the mage knew all there was to know two later, Yennefer knew in her gut she’d be last. She always was.</p><p>The sorceress swallowed her pride, smothered her jealousy. Ultimately deciding that it suited her just fine since it gave her time to practice, to research and to learn more. She may never have liked quiet evenings curled up with a book, even so, if she was to be the best, she needed to not just be a conduit of chaos, but a finely honed weapon.</p><p>Discontent amongst the peasantry was messy and Aedirn had more than its fair share of it, however, she refused to let anything taint her reign.</p><p>She had long ago come to terms with the way her hands would be further painted red the older she grew and as long as she didn’t dwell on it, the guilt and the questions could be easily ignored. No eminence that had walked the earth had died an innocent thing; no wondrous being could die a good person.</p><p>Yennefer of Vengerberg had sworn herself she would never again be worth just four marks.</p><p>The mage might just slay the Gods themselves if that was the price of a legacy beyond space and time.</p><p>Her despair had turned to anger and bitterness over the years and Tissaia de Vries happened to be the flame that kept the inferno within her aflame. All of it kept her alive and it didn’t matter if she ended up as ashes, as long as her power could end wars.</p><p>This she repeated to herself over and over again as she tried to contain the waves of chaos that begged her to do <em>something</em>, <em>anything,</em> before time ran out and she became just another completed project, just outside the Rectoress’ door.</p><p>Yennefer’s need to be remembered had come from none other than the face she saw in her mind as her fingers moved against her core. Shame and anger ruining the afterglow of her ecstasy.</p><p>Still, most of her impulses were troublesome even if she didn’t act on them, but this one was just <em>pathetic. </em></p><p>She was not a vulnerable and besotted teenager anymore. She didn’t need to be needed by anyone, much less <em>her. </em></p><p>It was a lie she would repeat to herself until the end of her days.</p><p>The sorceress bit the inside of her cheek, calling forth her shields and they came down on her dangerous thoughts and feelings, the steel quieting the whispers that always haunted her when she was left with only herself for too long.</p><p>Her mind and her heart, they were the most treacherous of places. Two black holes that one day would leave her empty, consume her completely.</p><p>She knocked on the door and breathed, one, two, <em>three.</em> It opened and she stepped inside the snake’s den- no- the Rectoress was much too regal and cunning to be a snake, maybe a fox? Or a cat? One with stunning eyes and disregard for feeble-minded humans.</p><p>The Arch-mistress didn’t acknowledge her, the only sounds in the room were those of their breathing and her quill scratching the parchment. Tissaia was probably managing who would make a show in Cintra next, another plot to make them understand why they would never cease to need them if they wanted to keep their heads attached.</p><p>Her posture was as straight as it could be with her hunched back as she sat in the chair, on her features her finest mask.</p><p>Yennefer turned her head, only for her gaze to meet sharp, blue eyes. She’d like to see them up close, solve the puzzle that made the brunette whole. “Your thoughts aren’t obnoxiously screaming in the length of my office.”</p><p>The sorceress clenched her deformed jaw, the Rectoress never recognized anything pertaining to her without at least berating her once. She could never reach the sky before falling back in the mud on her arse. “But there’s still noise. Noise that should be non-existent as of three years ago.”</p><p>When their dance had started, neither of them knew, they just waltzed the years away, trapped between the sweet melody of stolen breaths, tender looks and the acidic discord of rancorous dissatisfactions, venomous words.</p><p>Standing up the brunette dusted off her dress, adjusted her sleeves and moved the chair adjacent to Yennefer's close to the raven-haired woman’s without even having to move her hands or speak Elder words. Such was the power of the only female member of the Chapter.</p><p>She sat on it with the same poise of the Queens she had once served, summoning a large tome to her hand and opening it.</p><p>It was rumoured that Giltine was a proper artist, that he could turn people like her into pieces of art, but he wasn’t alive five hundred years ago. Whoever enchanted Tissaia, well, she must have been their masterpiece. They left her a Goddess incarnate.</p><p>The sound of the book disappearing with a <em>‘puff’</em> into thin air, called her back from her thoughts, still, not quickly enough and before she knew it pale fingers were running over the scars on her wrists, her touch soft.</p><p>Tissaia’s icy eyes were on hers, all humanity concealed, as Yennefer battled the blush that threatened to colour her face. “If it were the King’s touch that lingered here, what are you supposed to do?”</p><p>She couldn’t think, the pumping of her own blood was the only thing there was, the beating of her heart alongside it, beating more frantically than it had ever done, like she was a pig about to be slaughtered, <em>wasn’t she?</em> “Discourage him. But not with words, they rarely are enough for men like them.”</p><p>One finger pressed down on the thick line of one of her marks, her nail uncomfortable against her skin, a reprimand. Gods only knew how many she had gotten as a pupil. In her defence, how was Yennefer supposed to function when there was an insistent throbbing in between her legs?</p><p>“And if people talk?” The Rectoress’ tone was clipped, her brow furrowed. The raven-haired mage never failed to make a fool of herself in front of her.</p><p>Her response came when her hand left her skin and she wondered if it was just another dream, a fantasy short-lived. “Twist their words. An angry monarch is bad for a noble’s businesses.” It had been a habit of hers, back when she was still in the pigpen and she thought her body would rot there. In her mind, she was free to leave. “You did not ask any of the girls this.”</p><p>“I did not need to.” The woman she saw in the mirror had frightened her in a way none of the ones that came before had done, her reflection was enough to raise hell, wild eyes and sharp edges, a darkness that was so inherently Yennefer’s she’d gladly drown in it. No longer the girl that treasured her mentor’s words even if they cut her, but the sorceress Tissaia had known she could become.</p><p>Her hand went to her pendant, the metal cool against her hand, against the one that had touched her and now burned because of it. It was a precarious thing, the way the raven-haired mage had carved a space for herself in her rotten heart, since the moment she refused to follow her to an unknowingly better life.</p><p>When she’d found her that night, almost dead, her heart had caught in her throat and the Arch-mistress had fallen to the floor on her knees, searching for any sign that told her she still had time to save her. Letting out a dry sob when her heartbeat graced her ears, thanking the Gods for their mercy for the first time in centuries.</p><p>After that, she tried to lock her feelings away, even so, they lingered under her skin, too close to the surface when Yennefer was near and what she thought may be motherly affection turned into the greatest peril in her career as a teacher. So, Tissaia created distance and walls, which always somehow managed to stand- until it came the time for her to leave.</p><p>Grief could stop hurting, haunting, but hope was an incurable wound, always bleeding, asking for more.</p><p><em>The hope that one day she may come back to me</em>.</p><p>The Rectoress made way for her desk, opening a leather-bound notebook and taking from it something, then she went to sit in front of the violet-eyed sorceress, whose nails were digging into her palms.</p><p>Piglet may possess a sharp mind, an incredible wit, an astonishing cunning, but her skull was still thick and the brunette could easily guess her thoughts without invading her mind. That she thought her too little, when in reality Tissaia thought Yennefer too much. “Look at me.”</p><p>“Do you remember this?” Her voice was gentle as the brunette passed her the bloom, the flower preserved, looking the same as the day she had given it to her after gaining it from Istredd, anxious to prove herself capable of control, worthy of wielding magic.</p><p>She turned her head to the window, looking at anything but her. “Sometimes the best thing a flower can do for us is die.” The mage parroted.</p><p>“No.” Violet eyes searched her blue ones like she might hold the redemption and the salvation she had so desperately wanted all her life, in her skillset. So many things her young heart still longed for.</p><p>“Sometimes the best thing we can do for a flower is water it.” Tissaia said. And Yennefer smiled.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Prompt by @belindaforlesbo on tumblr: "Yennefer and Tissaia breaking the Djin's bond with their own connection."</p><p>Rated T.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Author's note: This had been sitting in my laptop for too long and only now have I finished it.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Yennefer was supposed to be the one to hunt a dragon, not get slain herself. But everything had gone to hell the moment she dared hope things might go her way this time, that this was the occasion where Destiny would grant her its favour, as a way to repay the hurt it had imposed on her since birth.</p><p>What a shitty tale for that bothersome, stupid bard to sing.</p><p>The Golden Dragon’s words were being repeated over and over in her mind, as she took a sip from the shitty ale the mage had bought in the nearest inn she could find, her hands trembling as she held the metal in a white-knuckled grip. The spirit burned her throat, her larynx tender from all the screams the violet-eyed woman was keeping in.</p><p>The sorceress had known, somewhere deep down, that her womb had been lost to her the day she decided Aedirn would be her legacy, when she had convinced herself that sacrificing everything would prove to be worth it. How stupid she had been, the crown she had worn was nothing but a coveted burden, the palace a gilded cage.</p><p>Things changed when the Princess and the Queen had been murdered and the raven-haired woman finally removed the comfortable blindfold she had put on herself when first confronted with the beast of a man she thought she controlled. What Yennefer saw was a hideous picture.</p><p>Things changed again, that fateful day in Rinde when Tissaia had warned her that this path would bring her nothing but misery and she had responded that an old bag had no say in the fate her former pupil was meticulously carving for herself.</p><p>The Arch-mistress was right, her quest had given her nothing but new, invisible wounds. Each new one more severe than the last, all laced with the sting of a voice she knew too well, telling her that she had been advised against continuing her self-destructive mission.</p><p>And that same night came Geralt, seeking a cure for his dying friend, pathetically offering her apple juice as payment. Bringing alongside him what would be steak to a wolf. The violet-eyed woman had seen an opportunity and seized it with greedy hands, dangerous as it was.</p><p>When the Djinn was finally inside her body the only thing the sorceress remembered was burning, everything inside her was burning, pain unlike what she had ever felt, even when her spine had been straightened. Still, it was a price she would’ve gladly paid, had her success not been thwarted.</p><p>The bloody witcher and his third fucking wish.</p><p>In the parlour, he had given her a taste of what they could’ve had and then he ran, much like she would’ve done if the mage knew the truth behind her ‘rescue’.</p><p>Yennefer spent the years after looking for him in the shadows of the places she visited, never asking herself why no lover’s touch was enough to sate her anymore. He shared a place within her chest only a blue-eyed woman had occupied before.</p><p>Her nights had been lonely, her days even more so, as the vicious tediousness of her life hit her. Always looking and never finding, clinging to her memories like the lifeline she had once been offered as she busied herself in deluding her mind that nothing of importance had been lost that evening and the day after.</p><p>It was exhausting, surviving and not living. Spending decades doing so, the days blurring into months, then years. It would have destroyed Yennefer, had she not known how to live like that from an existence long gone.</p><p>Eventually losing the concept of what everything had been to her. Drifting in and out of a reality she wished would just finish emptying her.</p><p>But she hoped. A fatal flaw that she had never been able to get rid of. She hoped and hoped one day she’d be whole. Reminding herself when the crickets sung that she had tasted happiness twice before. Magic, chaos, a fabricated fantasy that was the kindest thing to ever happen to her... A rare smile, a softness in her usually stern gaze she afforded no one else, as in front of a mirror a victory was finally achieved, the one instance where she had been at peace. And what had shimmered so beautifully rusted in an instant.</p><p>Yennefer supposed that’s why the feelings brought on by the truth were consuming her whole, reverting the powerful sorceress to the girl that slept on a cot in a pigpen, the piglets her only companions when the world became too cruel even for her.</p><p>Gods, she had never wanted to go back there and Geralt had forced that on her, too.</p><p>Even so, if history was to repeat itself, the mage knew of only one person that would know how to put her back together. Tissaia de Vries, the famed and respected Rectoress of Aretuza.</p><p>Who Yennefer had never been able to wash off her skin, make her mind forget and stop her soul from longing for, no matter what she tried or did. Four marks were all it took for the older woman to brand the one she bought as hers, forever.</p><p>Now she had to swallow her pride, strip her body and her soul bare to her for close inspection, to find a cure.</p><p>Fuck her life and her own choices.</p><p>Fuck Aretuza and the ghosts inside of it.</p><p>Fuck King Virfuril and his perverse, dimwit brain.</p><p>Fuck Geralt and his stupid decisions, chivalrous bastard that he was.</p><p>Most importantly, fuck Tissaia for irrevocably engraving her name in everything Yennefer was.</p><p>The raven-haired sorceress transfigured the bread crumbs in front of her into the amount she owed the bulky man who ran this place. Gods help every poor mortal that had tasted and would taste the worst pint she had imbibed in her entire life; her taste buds would need time to recover.</p><p>As a rogue mage she was without coin most of the time since the Chapter decided that if she kept her little business, they’d cut off her head. No matter, she was anything if not resourceful.</p><p>It helped that after so many escapades she didn’t feel guilty for ripping off so many people, since it really wasn’t on her but the blithering twats of the Brotherhood. Yennefer had tried to be an honourable citizen.</p><p>She closed the door behind her, stepping out into the chill of the night and adjusting her fur coat tighter. Walking past the centre of the town, disregarding the glances of the people who most likely believed her a demon, down to where the town ended and the forest started.</p><p>Her hand went to her choker, praying for bravery.</p><p>If she was to repeat their history, she’d do it properly.</p><p>The leaves in the grass crumbled and crunched under her boots, the sound of errant animals present now and then, the howling of wolves too. Nonetheless, she ignored it until she reached a point where every way her violet eyes looked there was no resemblance of civilisation.</p><p>Yennefer remembered fighting Tissaia every step of the way, trying to escape every time she thought she saw an opening until the Rectoress filled her mind with a thick fog the girl couldn’t find a way out of. Afterwards tossing her through a portal in the middle of nowhere to what would be her quarters, as she now did willingly.</p><p>The room hadn’t changed at all, trapped in time. The mage briefly wondered why she hadn’t arrived at a student screaming at her, whatever pathetic object she had nearest thrown her way or held in front of the girl as a make-shift weapon.</p><p>The woman turned to look at herself in the mirror, seeing the malformed monstrosity of before instead of the sorceress that had to stop a king from trying to court her. Yennefer frowned, disgusted.</p><p>Her hand turned the doorknob and she went out into the hallway, finding the torches lit, despite the lateness of the hour and the sorceress thought that perhaps this was a new measure so rebellious students were easier to spot. In her opinion, if they were worth their salt, that wouldn’t be enough to stop them.</p><p>She walked down hallways she remembered well, encountering few people she recognized, brushing past them when they acknowledged her and tried to make small talk. The raven-haired mage had more pressing matters to attend to than feigning interest in idle gossip and catching up with dull people.</p><p>As a student she admired her, her talent, her control, her cunning and obviously, her beauty. In all of her travels she had never found a creature as gorgeous, so stunning she rivalled any and all pieces of art on the Continent.</p><p>By day Tissaia was to Yennefer the personification of perfection. By night she was the one the raven-haired girl saw as her fingers moved incessantly against her slick heat, wishing desperately that it were elegant and nimble ones instead of her own.</p><p>If only her tongue weren’t the greatest weapon known to humankind that desire might’ve not turned to bitter resentment, to poisonous hatred, as the years passed and the glimpses of her humanity became fewer and fewer. As the Arch-mistress became crueller than the sea that surrounded them.</p><p>The violet-eyed mage had thought her brutal those months before the preliminary ascensions, nevertheless, what she had been then was nothing compared to the woman that taught her how to open portals, how to brew venoms, how to wield her innate power the way the brunette did hers.</p><p>When she arrived at her office her heart caught on her throat, the weight of what had happened that day resurging, her insides twisting with the force of it. The sorceress clenched her jaw, pushing past her overwhelming emotions and steeling herself.</p><p>Her knuckles brushed against the wood and without any ceremony, it opened before her.</p><p>Tissaia was sat behind her desk, smoking from her pipe. The study was lit by a dozen candles, incense burning somewhere she couldn’t see, enveloping the room in the aroma of sandalwood and every object that adorned it was perfectly accommodated. Another thing in this blasted place that remained the same.</p><p>Her feet carried her inside, sitting on the edge of the mahogany table, earning herself a quick glare from the brunette, who put down the quill she had been writing with to address her, “I can only think of two reasons why you’d be here at all. One, you did find a cure and think I don’t have better things to do than to hear you brag about it at this ungodly hour.”</p><p>The Arch-mistress took a rather long drag and slowly let out the smoke. “Two, you’ve gotten yourself cursed in this foolhardy quest of yours and need someone to undo it.” Her blue eyes never left her as she stood up, coming to stand in front of her. “Which one is it?”</p><p>“The latter.” Yennefer hissed and Tissaia tilted her head to the side, <em>‘tutting’ </em>amusedly. Moving, she put her pipe in its place, going to sit on one of the two couches next to the lit hearth, extending one of her arms and motioning for her to do the same, which the raven-haired woman did. “What happened?”</p><p>“A Djinn.” One of her eyebrows rose, her lips pursed so tightly she might as well not have any. Suddenly there were two glasses with whiskey, one on each of their hands, the only tell that the Rectoress was alarmed.</p><p>Pressing the glass against her forehead the brunette closed her eyes and muttered tiredly, “What have you gotten yourself into this time, piglet?”</p><p>The raven-haired sorceress took a long sip from her drink, slamming it against the armrest afterwards. “Don’t patronize me.” Tissaia waited for her to calm down, her mask untouched by her outburst.</p><p>It took the younger woman a few minutes to be able to speak again, “A witcher needed my aid, his friend was poisoned when they struggled for the trap. You already know what I tried next. The yellow-eyed git tied our fates with his last wish to save me.”</p><p>The Arch-mistress frowned. “Gods spare us from noble men.” Putting down her untouched glass on the floor, she slid down to sit on the fur carpet. Blue eyes sorrowful as she admitted her inability to assist her, hating herself for it. “I can’t help you.”</p><p>Yennefer mimicked her position, grabbing one of her hands between hers, her tone soft, pleading, “Tissaia... <em>please.</em>” In her anguish, she missed the way the older woman’s eyes went slightly wide, the way her body leaned towards her touch unconsciously.</p><p>“My dear, there are only two ways to break this spell, either find the Djinn or to already possess a bond with someone else that’s much stronger than the one made by magic.” The mage yanked her olive hand from her as if it had scorched her.</p><p>“What I feel… is what I’ve always longed for all my life and it’s a lie.” A bitter laugh escaping her lungs.</p><p>Finding the Djinn might take her years, decades and by then what would remain of her resolve, of her? At that point in time, the sorceress might just give up and accept the make-believe love story with a smile. “You warned me and I didn’t listen. I didn’t want to believe you. I didn’t- I am a beauty and no one has ever loved me.”</p><p>“How could they? I am a mess. Everything good that I touch rots, collapses in front of me and I have to go on knowing it was my fault.” She hid her face between the palms of her hands. “When my father called me a monster he must have known, that my deformities were also inside me, he should’ve ki-”</p><p>Abruptly Yennefer stood up, looking yearningly at the door. “I’m sorry for wasting your time. I shouldn’t have come.” The mage almost sprinted for it, ready to get out of here, to run far away, to drown everything she felt in the drugs she had in Rinde, to waste away the rest of her life in that house. But the doorknob wouldn’t turn.</p><p>Resting her forehead against the wood, she mumbled, “Why?” Not that she didn’t deserve it, insulting the Rectoress at every turn, trying unsuccessfully to humiliate her, poking with a needle at the few vulnerabilities the violet-eyed mage knew her to have.</p><p>“I find it hard to say the truth but I will try.” The sorceress turned to look at the brunette, who was fiddling with the sleeves of her dress, the rise and fall of her chest hurried and inconsistent as the moments passed and her mouth opened and closed. With a muttered <em>‘Shite’</em> she began and her heart stopped for a minute, she had heard Tissaia swear thrice before. “When I take girls into my custody, I break them, no matter how wounded they already are when they become conduits. I invade their minds and rummage it for information that I know will make them cry after class, that will haunt them at night.”</p><p>Yennefer slowly came to sit in front of her again, mesmerized by the sincerity coming out of her former mentor’s mouth. “Then a few of them prove themselves worthy of ascending and I become harsher on the ones that have easy access to chaos and crueller to the ones that have partially blocked their channel.”</p><p>The Rectoress downed the whole contents of her glass, replenishing it with a wave of her hand. She bit her lower lip, pausing for a minute. “During the next nine years, I take whatever remains and mould it into a woman that can survive the way of life Destiny choose for her.”</p><p>“I send them out. I hope I’ve done enough so they can survive the horrors outside these halls and I cease to care for the large majority of them.” Still, she had kept tabs on her, always, making sure she continued existing by fighting the Chapter, to the detriment of her own standing.</p><p>“When I came back from Rinde I trashed my office in a frenzy only Rita could get me out of.” Their eyes meet and Tissaia’s held more emotion than she ever thought the sorceress could possess. “It had only happened once before… the moment I found you bleeding out on the floor filled my nightmares for months.”</p><p>The brunette extended her hand and took one of the raven-haired woman’s wrists, the Arch-mistress then caressed the scars there with such care it threatened to undo her. “What I felt when you willingly pushed Anika into the pond in exchange for my favour was more than what I had in all five centuries prior to that night. And it grew and grew and grew until it was unbearable.”</p><p>“I was the greatest villain to you, so you’d never have a reason to want to be close to me.” Constantly going against all of her instincts, which begged her to lure her in. “I knew from the start you were chaos incarnate, that you’d leave hundreds of broken hearts in your wake and after your ascension, I would’ve gladly killed anyone that stood in my way of suffering that same fate.”</p><p>Her hand cupped her cheek, her thumb caressing the skin. “Yet I knew that after having you, I couldn’t, for the life of me, ever allow myself to let you go.” Tissaia’s voice broke then, “But you have never been mine to keep.”</p><p>The sorceress’ eyes shone a way they had never done before as she went back to her desk, resting her whole weight on the wood. “Yennefer, you’ve always been loved, if not by who you wanted to be.”</p><p>She felt hands on her waist turning her around, pushing her back to sit on the table and she acquiesced, her feelings too raw at the admission she had just made, leaving her weak to protest. The magic that flowed through her veins boiling in her blood, in its begging a sadness so wretched she might draft her resignation in the morning and hide from the world for a long while in her manor on Skellige.</p><p>The Arch-mistress was grabbed forcibly by the chin, the raven-haired beauty searching her eyes for any sign that she was being deceived, something akin to a sob leaving her when she found none. Hiding her face in the crook of the older woman’s neck as Tissaia held her shaking frame. “I’m sorry it’s not-” She couldn’t say it, not out loud.</p><p>
  <em>“I’m sorry I am not enough to break the chains on your soul.”</em>
</p><p>“You don’t know that.” It left her in a breathless whisper, Yennefer’s forehead moving to rest against hers, her eyes closed as a million thoughts invaded her mind and the raven-haired woman pushed them down, with what little she had left.</p><p>A lock of dark hair was pushed behind her ear, her pale finger smoothing the lines in her brow and then mapping her features, like she might never again have her this close and tonight was all they had. “The Gods don’t smile for us. They never have.”</p><p>“I don’t care.” What a glorious and precious thing was to see her willingly let down her impenetrable walls. They came down methodically, each part revealing more of how their history was through her eyes.</p><p>Anger, making her skin itch at the sight of a vulnerable young woman being sold like that, to a life her father knew not what it would consist of. A curse flowing through her fingers to both adults that did nothing, instinct overriding reason.</p><p>Panic, the kind that left her unable to breathe as she fell to her knees, her dress getting stained with the blood of her newest charge, tears threatening to fall from her eyes as her weak heartbeat almost stopped. Severed tendons which she fixed with magic so draining that it left her dizzy.</p><p>Numbness, as she stared at the destruction around her, her books burnt to a crisp, bottles of elixirs and potions spilt, broken glass all around her as Rita screamed something at her she couldn’t quite understand. Tendrils of chaos escaping her even then.</p><p>Pride, she knew her capable of wielding tremendous power but she had feared her not willing of paying the cost of the life her pupil deserved. A smile on her lips, admiration in her eyes.</p><p>Fear, when she woke up in cold sweat that night, realizing how utterly screwed she was. Every comment that came after specifically crafted to make the violet-eyed girl hate her, whatever claim she had on her was nothing but a very dangerous target on her back. A liability.</p><p>Concern, when she was unable to bend the Chapter to her will. No, Stregobor knew that she was something more to Tissaia and his actions were all meant to show her how easy it would be to extinguish her flame.</p><p>Awe, when she stepped through the doors a changed woman, a beautiful one.</p><p>Discontent, when it felt as though the King was stealing from her someone the Arch-mistress didn’t want to let go of.</p><p>Despair, as all the words she heard in Rinde cut deeper than any other ones she had heard before and Gods, she had thought prior to that, that she had heard everything.</p><p>Heartbreak, as Rita and Coral stormed through her door to find the wreckage she felt in her soul manifesting itself in the mess she had made of her office.</p><p>Yennefer saw all of it in her mind’s eye. Tears escaping them both, of happiness and grief and all that existed in between, the force of chaos in their souls revealing itself around them like sparkling starlight.</p><p>A kiss that had been building up for more than seven decades, drowning in the other with no intention of ever coming back up for air. It was so sweet to hurt like this.</p><p>The string of Destiny the Djinn had created broke then. “It was always you.”</p><p>Her search had finally ended, her quest completed, for all that she saw and assumed and was present for the large majority of it, it was only seeing it from the perspective of the woman she had so wanted to hate that the truth was laid out in front of them both.</p><p>“Us. It was always us.” Tissaia said.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Author's note: I have finished chapter 18 of OAR, now I just need to do the 17th and the 19th. Lmao. Send help.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Flash-fic #1</p><p>Major angst. Happy ending.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>“Tissaia-”</em>
</p><p>Yennefer closed the connection when Triss spoke the last vowel, steel coming down on a rose petal. She had felt it, the dying spark of the Rectoress and now, three days after the coup on Thanned she finally had the confirmation.</p><p>Vision blurring, head pounding, as her lungs choked with loss.</p><p>After Sodden there had been many instances of little somethings, but she had devoted herself too fully to the cause, wanting to make her proud, to deserve her, before addressing the lingering stares, the soft touches, the <em>‘what if’s’</em>.</p><p>The mage had thought there was time, plenty of it. To get to know her, the lines of her body, the complexity of her mind. Enough time to build a ‘them’.</p><p>Yennefer played; they lost.</p><p>And now whatever person had lived under her olive skin for almost a century was broken beyond what any magic in the Continent was able to repair.</p><p>She waited for the violent displays of chaos, but they never arrived, still, tears fell from her eyes with abandon, heart seized by invisible claws. This was not the darkness she was the Queen of.</p><p>The sorceress closed her eyes, recalling the smell of her, orchids and raspberries. Her eyes, blue like the sea on a sunny day. Her voice, smooth like velvet, as powerful as thunder. The way her office was always encased in the smoke from her pipe. The way her brow furrowed. Her huffs of indignation, of amusement. How she smiled, truly, only for <em>her.</em></p><p>
  <em>How long would the memory of her last?</em>
</p><p>Yennefer’s sobs were the only sound in the cottage, her knuckles bloodied as she hit the stone underneath her again and again. All of her body shaking with the force of her grief.</p><p>Her stomach gave in, bile rising to her throat and spewed unto the ground until she was sure she wouldn’t be able to speak for at least a week. She clutched the choker she had given her like a lifeline throughout.</p><p>The overwhelming guilt of it all. The mage left her, even when she saw how her world crumbled around her, how what she had lovingly crafted was burned to the ground and she didn’t even think to come back.</p><p>Tissaia de Vries was unbendable, unbroken, grander than life itself. Tissaia de Vries was dead. <em>Gone. </em></p><p>The Arch-mistress had taken <em>everything</em> with her.</p><p>She cleaned the salty drops with the heel of her hand, eyeing her scars and finally, screamed. Scratching with long nails the arms that cradled her like the shattered and dangerous thing she was, the whispered hushes continuing even as she drew blood.</p><p>The ones that helped to her feet.</p><p>That pulled her through a portal.</p><p>That caught her wrist as she tried to slap their owner, Triss.</p><p>She couldn’t recognize where they were, only that the room was gently lit by a dozen candles. And through her tears, she saw it. A small frame under the covers.</p><p>Yennefer stumbled her way to the edge of the bed, holding her hope in bruised hands, in clenched teeth, in whatever remained of her war-torn heart.</p><p>Gentle breaths, the almost imperceptible rise of her chest. Bandaged forearms, precise cuts she just knew were underneath.</p><p>
  <em>Tissaia de Vries had tried to kill herself. </em>
</p><p>Her knees gave away and she began sobbing anew, as quietly as she could. “...Yennefer?”</p><p>Violet orbs opened, meeting blue. The world stopped just for them, then. “I will build you a new home. A new world. Please. <em>Stay.</em>”</p><p>Her tired gaze softened. “I love you, Tissaia.”</p><p>A small smile. Only for her.</p><p>
  <em>“I love you too.”</em>
</p><p>She climbed beneath the covers next to her, holding her gently by the waist, as their spent bodies fell asleep in less than a candle mark.</p><p>Triss closed the door behind her.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Prompt by anonymous on tumblr: Yennaia as parents. (Yennefer comes back from an assignment with an unknown artefact. Tissaia touches it and, without anyone else noticing, receives a vision of the future- a future where she and Yennefer are married and raising a family.)</p><p>Rated T.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Author's note: Okay I changed it a bit (pls don't get mad anon because I think it was for the best) and it took me 84 years (SORRY!!!!!)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She rubbed her temples, a migraine working its way from the right side of her head to encompass it all. Eyeing through narrowed eyes the books sprawled around her desk, she belatedly noticed that some were threatening to fall off, almost making her chuckle, because no matter how much she might have changed since her conduit moment, Yennefer was still as messy as ever.</p><p>Tissaia sighed instead, leaning back into her chair, contemplating changing the contents of her pipe to something stronger than Kaedwenian tobacco, nevertheless, she was called back from her thoughts, just as she was about to summon the herbs, by a loud groan coming from the woman in front of her.</p><p>Who by the looks of her, wasn’t faring much better, with both hands clasped together as if in prayer, her forehead resting against them, black silky hair covering the rest of her face from view.</p><p>They had been at this for <em>weeks</em>, ever since the mage came back from an emergency call from Istredd, who had found only Gods knew what in those ancient ruins he studied as a saner person might their lover. And from the annoyed twist of her carmine lips and the crackling of chaos around her when the younger sorceress had portalled into her office, the boy had put up quite the fight to give it away to someone that wasn’t from the Council or the Chapter.</p><p>(Creating a way to erase memories might just be the Arch-mistress’ greatest achievement, not that anyone would ever know the author behind that particular spell.)</p><p>But neither could be trusted with the current political climate, after Sodden… well, everything had gone to shit after Sodden. The only good thing to come out of it being that Yennefer had decided to stay for the time being at Aretuza, then again not without imposing herself on Tissaia, of course, for the Rectoress now had a shadow that followed her everywhere except the laboratory.</p><p>Alas, Margarita had taken over her classes, since she was still recovering from the dimetirium, so her overwhelming amount of spare time had been spent trying to figure out what the golden ball in front of them was. A lost cause, probably, now that she considered it coldly.</p><p>Even so, hours and hours of hard work had borne no fruits. Nothing in her office, her mind or the immense library her school possessed had given them even clues.</p><p>Such an inconspicuous looking thing that it was… The most dangerous kind, if her five centuries alive had taught her anything.</p><p>It had slight cracks that looked intentional as if it was holding something on its insides of great importance, yet other than that, it wouldn’t look out of place in the workshop of a famous blacksmith. It certainly didn’t look like something found in an elven gravesite.</p><p>There had been moments when it had called to them, yes, to the Arch-mistress and her rebel. Distorted whispers, chants in Elder, beckoning them to touch it, still, they never did. That might just be suicide, considering the sheer power it exuded and after the battle with Nilfgaard, neither sorceress was keen on ending it, no matter how willing they had been on that hill.</p><p>‐</p><p>
  <em>“It’s time to accept life has no more to give.”</em>
</p><p>‐</p><p>
  <em>“You’re worth more than Nilfgaard could ever give you.”</em>
</p><p>‐</p><p>No, they didn’t need any more blood on their already soaked hands, thank you very much. That didn’t mean Destiny agreed with their passivity, though. Those gods-damned whispers. They hadn’t even had lunch!</p><p>Fingertips tinted white, Tissaia de Vries, resident Ice Queen, was actually considering throwing the sodding thing into the ocean, from her window office.</p><p>“What’s the worst that could happen? Really?” Said the violet-eyed mage and were the Arch-mistress in a better mood or her lungs not burning or exhaustion not weighing down on her like talking to Stregobor at length did, she might’ve listened to her conscious, to her control or just to reason because what she did next was shocking to both her and Yennefer.</p><p>She extended her bare hand as if possessed, ignoring the high-pitched wails of the younger mage who insisted she had only been joking, because what else was she supposed to do in this bloody hovel of a castle that was filled with cretins and hormonal teenagers?</p><p>The sorceress might have also noticed that her former pupil was just as willing to put herself in the line of fire for her as she had been on the battlefield.</p><p>They touched the metal. <em>Together.</em></p><p>And their whole worlds were shaken to the core.</p><p>╌</p><p>Sitting up so fast she almost fell off the bed. <em>A bed?</em> Blue eyes opened to gentle sunlight coming from the window, the cold air hitting her bare skin, making goosebumps form on her ivory skin.</p><p>Looking down on herself she took notice that she wasn’t only naked but on a foreign bed, one that resembled the one in- <em>Oh, fuck.</em></p><p>Cautiously she looked to the person next to her, holding the sheet against her bosom, trying to recover whatever she could of her destroyed modesty. The sight that met her was red, full, lips, her beautiful mouth open so wide her jaw might be dislocated, violet eyes and equally bare olive skin.</p><p>Tissaia and Yennefer both screamed.</p><p>The younger mage put space between them by jumping out of the bed and thus revealing herself completely to the brunette, who just responded by covering her petite form with the sheets. Hiding in a makeshift cocoon, her hands came up to cover her eyes like a toddler, only to find a wedding band on her ring finger, falling down the mattress, on her arse, accidentally, in her fright.</p><p>About to scream some more the pair were startled by a tentative knocking on the door and a child’s preoccupied voice, “Mama, Mummy, why are you screaming? You promised we could sleep in since aunt Rita almost burned down the kitchen yesterday!”</p><p>She could perfectly see the pout of the baby girl in her mind’s eyes, the fantasy upsetting her beyond belief, a visceral reaction she had only ever had with one girl out of the dozens she had taught. “It was a bat, it came through the window!” Tissaia responded on reflex, the words out of her mouth before she knew it.</p><p>The raven-haired mage followed suit, not knowing what was happening, just that she had the urge to make that tone of hers go away as fast as she could, “We’ll make it up to you! What about pancakes, sweetheart?” Covering her mouth with her hands, she made the same discovery that had the mighty Rectoress of Aretuza reacting like Fringilla was about to throw the powder at her face again.</p><p>“Okay! I’ll go tell Duchess!” And with that the girl, who they somehow knew was four and feasted on those pastries as King Foltest had done on wine, was gone, leaving two gobsmacked mages behind. <em>King Foltest was dead.</em></p><p>“Whatever in <em>fuck’s </em>name happened?” Hissed the Arch-Mistress, crawling up to the bed and covering herself with one of the quilts she took from it. She threw with her free hand another one to Yennefer’s face, which the younger mage immediately wrapped around herself like a towel.</p><p>“Don’t ask me, you’re the one that touched the bloody artefact.” Walking to the wardrobe she pulled out a dress, glaring at the offensive garment for being a plain thing that she would have never in her right mind spent her coin in. Taking, as well, from one of the drawers a shirt and a skirt that could only belong to Tissaia, since they were so small, passing the clothing to the brunette and avoiding her eyes. “And like an idiot, I tried to stop you.”</p><p>She made a beeline for the bathroom, slamming the door closed. “Balance and control, my arse!” After throwing a pillow at the closed door, the brunette put on the outfit, frowning at her reflection in the mirror whilst simultaneously doing her hair up in her normal bun, almost hyperventilating when she noticed that her necklace was nowhere to be seen.</p><p>Breathing as deeply and slowly as possible, she went looking for some footwear and found worn boots by what the Arch-mistress assumed was her part of the bed, fastening the shoelaces with her teeth gritted and her hands shaking with electricity. Gods, she knew looked like a bloody peasant and that the pendant was gone and that she was now probably married with a child, but burning the house down with lightning wasn’t going to help matters at all.</p><p>Tissaia’s mind had never been this troubled as when she slid down the wall, her head resting against her knees, her arms hugging them. The brunette had dreamed about something like this, for years, decades even, but that was all she let herself have, never thinking she could get over the hurt of allowing herself to embrace it, knowing it was impossible.</p><p>Flashbacks assaulted her then, blood coming from her palms as she dug her nails in the skin. The coup on Thanned, Princess Cirilla and the witcher Geralt, the Lodge of Sorceresses and the end of the conflict and then… peace. A wedding. A gift. A baby. Her daughter. <em>Their daughter.</em></p><p>Her whole frame shook, dry sobs coming from her lungs. Teeth biting down on her wounded hand to not make a sound. The grief. The loss. The happiness. The love. It was unbearable and still the best that had ever happened to her. Still a fabricated fantasy.</p><p>Inside the laboratory, her violet eyes filled with tears, letting some of them, the most stubborn, fall. This was all she had ever wanted, but not like this. Gods, not like this. From what little she could see they were happy, so happy in this reality and yet she knew it would slip from her fingers like water the moment that fucking ball decided to take this from her.</p><p>She wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand, trying to take comfort in applying the green eyeshadow on her eyelids, the lipstick on her lips, as a thousand memories fought for the spotlight in her mind. Gripping the brush so hard she broke it when her clever mind managed to solve the riddle of this existence.</p><p>
  <em>They were in the future.</em>
</p><p>Racing to the door she opened it with magic, almost tripping in her haste to get to her <em>wife.</em> Stopping dead in her tracks when she saw what Tissaia had been reduced to.</p><p>Her thoughts unguarded for the first time she could remember, flowing in the stream of chaos that was always present around her. There were so many things to decipher she just stood still for a few minutes and then her heart broke. The ocean inside her was killing her. “Oh.” She whispered.</p><p>“Tissaia.” Yennefer knelt in front of her, taking her hands and healing the half-moon cuts in her palms. Blue eyes fluttering open, the light in them belonging to a broken woman, to a dead one. <em>As she almost made herself.</em> Gods, please, no. Anything but that. <em>Anything.</em> Even so, it was the truth and she was thankful for the knowledge in a way, for the opportunity to stop her, to hide her from the world that would come to want her head on a pike.</p><p>She hugged her, burying her face in the crook of her neck, smelling in the scent of her. “<em>Please.</em>” When that wasn’t enough, the younger sorceress manoeuvred them so the woman was on her lap, her chin on the crown of her head, rocking her back and forth, whispering sweet nothings in her ear, until the Arch-mistress was able to pull herself back together somewhat.</p><p>Her hand went to her cheek, her thumb caressing her reverently, tears leaking down blue orbs, but not for the reason the mage would’ve thought. “I’ve never wanted anything- I wish with every fibre of my being this was real.” Letting out a breath she didn’t know she was holding, she rested her forehead against the brunette’s. Yennefer had never been so grateful for thought transference.</p><p>Their eyes opened. Full of love, full of life. This was right. All their sacrifices were worth it, would be, knowing where the path ended, knowing the story ended and began again with them. A decade from where they left, together in that office studying the artefact and the wait couldn’t matter less when this was the endgame.</p><p>The door opened, and their gazes landed on a child, half dragging, half carrying a white cat into the room, her white shift barely covering her feet and Tissaia gasped, the familiar tingling in her head warning her of a conduit moment, her daughter’s. “Everything felt so wrong.” The child whimpered and getting off Yennefer as fast as she could she scooped her baby into her arms, Duchess landing gracefully on the floor, looking at the three of them suspiciously.</p><p>“It’s fine. Everything is fine now.” The sorceress whispered, blue meeting violet, her fingers moving one strand of chestnut hair behind her tiny ear. Slowly turning to the younger mage, who had clapped to get their attention, a choked sound leaving her throat when she realised just how much like them the toddler looked.</p><p>Controlling herself and smiling, the raven-haired mage said, “Now, who wants blueberry pancakes, with lots of honey?” The cat mewed, making the little girl giggle and she knew instantly, who she had taken the sound of her laughter from and putting her olive hand on Tissaia’s, Yennefer guided them down to the kitchen.</p><p>╌</p><p>She heaved, her hand against her chest, against the coolness of the pendant and she saw the younger mage was the same.</p><p>A vision. A gift.</p><p>The Arch-mistress tackled the raven-haired sorceress, kissing her for all she was worth. Kissing her again and again, until their bodies protested the magical strain they had just endured, loudly enough.</p><p>Frowning, when helping her up instead of happiness she sensed in her aura a deep paranoia. “Darling?” Not meeting her eyes, she answered, fiddling with the cloth of her elaborate skirt, but not letting go of the hand that held hers.</p><p>“Yes?” It came in a breathless whisper.</p><p>Tissaia grabbed her chin, frowning. “What’s the matter?” She nudged her consciousness with her own, finding steel doors firmly locked, still, she persisted, until she was sure the answer was ready to leave her tongue.</p><p>“Now that you know what will happen, will you… will you stop the coup?” <em>‘Will you change fate? Knowing the price of keeping the Brotherhood?’</em> went unsaid. Destiny was a fickle, wilful thing and they knew this better than most people. A give and a take, as the still Rectoress had restlessly engrained into her pupils.</p><p>The brunette laughed, reminding her of what was awaiting them if they dared. “Of course not.” Kissing Yennefer again to shut her up, she continued, “No. Every great empire has fallen. Every great empire will. I know this. I always have.”</p><p>Never in her life had she been this openly honest, vulnerable. She couldn’t bring herself to care. “It’ll hurt me, it might break me, to see what I created in ashes, but if I have to choose… my choice will <em>always</em> be you<em>,</em> Yennefer, it will <em>always</em> be our baby.”</p><p>Tears fell from her eyes again, this time the Arch-mistress cleaning them. “My choice will always be the both of you, too. When the world falls into the darkness, which we know it will, please remember I love you<em>.</em>”</p><p>“I promise.” She muttered.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Author's notes: I'm working on OAR but since I didn't update for a long while I'm just not feeling it and I'm not Disney, I don't release things that I feel aren't what I believe to be my best, so I'm doing the prompts in my inbox to practice and then, hopefully, we can begin with the end of what has been the most challenging and rewarding project I've done in years.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Prompt by anonymous: Gamer AU.</p><p>Rated T.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tissaia really had no idea why she was doing this. Perhaps to appease Rita. Perhaps because her addiction to nicotine had worsened over the course of one year of a bloody Continent-wide pandemic and she was loath to use her credit card every time she needed a new pack of cigarettes. Perhaps she was going through a midlife crisis to cope with the fact that being the Chancellor of Aretuza College was already stressful enough without half the generations there trying to fool her subordinates into thinking cardboard replicas or even mannequins counted as attendance or simply because the rest of the Board of Governors (Stregobor) couldn't differentiate between what could be said through an email and what required her to clean her entire house so the background of her call was pristine.</p><p>Her controller vibrated in her hands, (Why, for the love of the Gods, couldn't that setting be turned off?) her knuckles turning white from gripping it so strongly. "Oh, for fu- heaven's sake." There, she had been ambushed. Again. A funny and wholly unexpected thing happened, though, one of the users turned on her companions, offing the lot of them with clean headshots the brunette definitely couldn't pull off in the span of twenty seconds.</p><p>"Uhh..." What does one say when your virtual saviour just betrayed her entire party on a whim and was being cursed at obnoxiously loudly and vulgarly for it?</p><p>Yennefer ignored Sabrina calling her names that absolutely applied to her and her hormonal reaction to a lovely blue-eyed MILF the likes of which she had only seen in her dreams. "No thanks needed, love. I was getting tired of seeing you frown like someone had keyed your car every time you got killed. A pretty thing like you should only have cause to smile." Oh, Gods, now she sounded like a creepy old man that lived in his mum's basement. Great. Good job. Her Social Studies major was an absolute hit. Fuck her life. Fuck Oxenfurt College. And fuck Sabrina's witch-like cackling while she was at it. "Name’s Yennefer." She choked out miserably.</p><p>Tissaia scowled at her laptop. Hackers. Amazing. This was the best day of her new normal life. "Mind telling me how you broke through the most expensive antivirus in the Continent, dear? Because now I really need a refund." Now she also needed to contact Aretuza’s IT team on a Saturday night, because she was not about to mess any further with these blasphemous machines, thank you very much.</p><p>Wait, what? "That wasn't me... You left your camera on." The woman legitimately squealed at that, her oversized jumper sliding down her left shoulder and exposing just a glimpse of her collarbone as she pinned up her hair into a bun with... were those pens fashioned as swords? Oh, bugger, this was so not the time to get turned on! "Are you alright?" Mercifully Sabrina, Renfri and Phillipa were already accosting someone else, else she was sure the brunette would've completely lost it, more than she already was doing, anyways. "Hello?" No answer.</p><p>Tissaia was fishing for her boots when she started ranting, “Oh, don’t you worry! I’m fine! Just dandy! This is <em>exactly</em> how I wanted my life to go.” She motioned with her hand to the space around her. “I wished for nothing more than dealing with complete morons from nine to six, five days a week, whilst trying to make sure my sanity doesn't desert me.” Biting her lower lip for a moment she began checking that the ends of the laces were the same length when she pulled them up. “Running right after to my local grocery store to buy more instant meals that are probably going to give me cancer in five years if the bullshit articles my mother keeps sending me-”</p><p>Yennefer had told herself she wasn’t going to allow this wasn’t going to get any creepier than her misguided comment but she still had a gift code for that nice liquor store which conveniently had retailers popping up every six blocks everywhere for the last few months, especially in Thanned isle, only Gods knew why. “This bloody succubus of a twat that is my best friend has been forcing me to constantly use this cursed game by changing the password for my email and then Aretuza’s server and then-” Bingo. One text to Philippa and they had her IP address, with a mortified Triss already calling Jaskier since she was the only one that had managed to get a decent scholarship at that posh college.</p><p>This was her future wife who was about to jump from a bridge from the looks of her and they just had to do humanity a great service by saving her from herself and from sobriety.</p><p>“Can you believe that tosser? I am a lesbian! I spent my teenage years clad in flannel until my girlfriends staged an intervention kind of lesbian! Yes, Vilgefortz, I will sue you for harassment in the workplace and I <em>will</em> blacklist you. No, Vilgefortz, I don’t want to break quarantine to go on a date with you and I definitely do <em>not</em> want your disgusting cologne anywhere near my-” Tissaia’s head shot up, her doorbell was ringing and she pinched the bridge of her nose, reaching for a new, disposable, mask.</p><p>“You stay right there.” She threatened the girl, who had the most beautiful violet… Perhaps she really ought to let Coral get her a therapist. It rang again. <em>“Gods-damn-it.”</em> She thought.</p><p>Her plan was going marvellously. She would only have to sleep with a knife under her pillow for a few weeks for blackmailing Sabrina (Who honestly hadn’t the slightest talent to pass off plagiarism as a sudden stroke of genius in her final project without her aid.) into going along with this. The blonde was lighting the candles around the monitor without trying to burn her hair off and had given away her best bottle of cheap but still good wine for the cause. Thanks to Renfri and her frankly psychotic, owl obsessed, girlfriend she already knew what she would be replacing her trauma-ridden last name with! Splendid!</p><p>The brunette shut the door on Jaskier’s face after taking the brown paper bag from his hands, spraying the bottle of vodka inside it with so much disinfectant that it dripped down onto her carpet. Taking off her gloves and disposing of them, she grabbed a knife from the counter and ignoring the annoying blue light that came from the kitchen table, “Oh, shit. You’re soulmates. I’ll tell the rest of the girls we’re all fucked.” Tissaia cut off the upper part of the glass in one smooth hit, like Calanthe had taught her when the then teacher could still be considered fun by her groups of friends.</p><p>“Shut up, tiddybug!” She heard Yennefer sing-song.</p><p>Feeling like being crass the blue-eyed woman took a rather large swing directly from the bottle. Sitting back down, she sighed. Yennefer took a dignified sip from her wine; she could do balanced when her significant other to-be needed to let loose. “Did you like the bottle? It has good reviews from… wait a minute… apparently several alcoholics who don’t know what a budget is.”</p><p>Tissaia’s face paled. “I thought you weren’t a hacker.” The woman muttered. She didn’t fancy getting kidnapped and… No, no, <em>no.</em> Fucking Rita. What was the cost of moving, again? If she slept four hours less a day and split her cleaning time in two she could probably trade this house for Stregobor's in-</p><p>“I am not!” Yennefer cried. Bloody hell. “You just mentioned that you worked at Aretuza and-” Sabrina had probably started a group call and Phillipa was indeed hacking into her computer to save her arse. The Redanian was currently writing a script for her to follow. “Your username in the game is your surname. My friends and I tried to get into that school a few years back and I do remember that the Chancellor is a woman and that her last name is de Vries.” Her username wasn’t her last name, it was actually something that suggested she was an Ice Queen of the highest order. Queen Elsa from the movie Frozen would be intimidated kind of Ice Queen.</p><p>“Everyone is aware the highest-ranking members of the faculty live in chalets near the castle, pardon, the building.” True. According to Triss, that was a part of their contract that if unfulfilled prohibited them from working there ever again. To Yennefer that seemed borderline cruel, forcing them to be available at all hours like circus animals for juniors that didn’t deserve their spots.</p><p>“My best friend is a student there and she knows which one is your home because she wants to eventually be a teacher.” Partially true. Until that day came, Triss, like any rational individual, avoided the Chapter’s Village like the plague lingered inside, and wouldn’t be caught dead there unless she had to stop Sabrina from doing something stupid because of the anarchist phase she was going through. Jaskier was an acquaintance of hers of sorts because Triss had tutored his boyfriend Geralt in Biology and being daddy’s boy, <em>he</em> knew which one was Tissaia’s house because he had almost gotten expelled like fifteen times.</p><p>“I honestly just wanted to do something nice for you, you sounded like you needed it and… I know quarantine hasn’t been lifted once in Temeria since it all started.” Philippa wrote then that she would probably make for a decent actor without flashing her breasts to the audience every five minutes. She pursed her lips and replied in the mock post-it note to fuck off.</p><p>“I… I… Thank you. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed- I’m sorry, darling.” Her pale cheeks flushed at the term of endearment that slipped her tongue and Tissaia bowed down her head, red-painted nails caressing the glass bottle almost reverently. “Say, why don’t you tell me what your email address is and I send you my mobile via chat? The explosions in the background aren’t that, uhm, <em>comforting</em> to listen to when I’d much rather be hearing your voice.” Should she have looked up she would have seen the smile that threatened to split Yennefer’s face. “Only if you want to, of course! I- what am I even saying? Never mi-”</p><p>“No! Wait!” She placated. Sabrina squeezed her shoulder as she went to retrieve her phone charger, offering her a genuine smile. “I’d love to.”</p><p>“Okay.” Said Tissaia, an awed sound leaving her throat when blue finally meet with lilac. Gods, she was drop-dead gorgeous. Rita could have whichever bottle, all the liquor she wanted from the school’s cellar for indirectly enabling this.</p><p>Was one week a proper enough courting period to then buy the engagement ring? Or should she just have Philippa get her the best, costliest one from that jewellery eshop they all liked through some minor fraud that would take her like half an hour at most, today? “Good.” Yennefer de Vries had <em>such</em> a nice ring to it.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Author's note; This was supposed to be like three sentences, according to the Tumblr game but my fingers didn't stop, so... I'm not sorry, okay? (I tried my hand at crack, I do hope nobody hates me for it lmao.)</p><p>Tissaia is me having a breakdown because here in Mexico (or at least in my state) quarantine hasn't been lifted once since 2020.</p><p>Fun fact: One of my friends did sleep through three days worth of classes by using a mannequin.</p>
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